You are here

China blasts UN report on North Korea abuse

By Stuart LeavenworthMcClatchy Foreign Staff

BEIJING — China finds itself under a harsh international spotlight this week as it attempts to block further United Nations actions against North Korea for that country’s alleged crimes against humanity, while facing a separate review of its own human rights record.

On Monday, China, a member of the U.N. Security Council, dismissed a U.N. report that documented how North Korea for decades has abused prisoners and dissidents in secret prisons. The reported abuses included forcing tortured children to watch their loved ones be executed.

Chen Chuandong, a counselor at China’s mission in Geneva, told the U.N. Human Rights Council that the U.N.’s independent commission of inquiry had made unfounded accusations and had failed to gain North Korea’s trust in assisting with the inquiry.

“The inability of the commission to get support and cooperation from the country concerned makes it impossible for the commission to carry out its mandate in an impartial, objective and effective manner,” Chen said.

The chief author of the report, retired Australian judge Michael Kirby, later rejected China’s argument, saying that the United Nations had carefully documented every allegation and had an obligation to pursue claims of gross human rights abuses even if the host country refuses to participate.

Earlier, Kirby told the council that the world community had the courage to stand up and investigate the crimes of Nazi Germany, and the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, putting North Korea’s leaders in the same camp as Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot.

“The process of healing really starts when there is an acknowledgment of error, an acknowledgment of great crimes against humanity,” Kirby said. “They are not minor matters.”

China’s stance means that, unless changed, there is little chance the Security Council will refer the case to the International Criminal Court in The Hague. Such a referral could possibly result in Beijing’s erratic allies — including the current North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — being prosecuted as war criminals.

Many human rights activists say China’s stance on North Korea has much to do with fears that a U.N. tribunal could seek to prosecute China’s own leaders at some future date.

Hu Jia, a human rights activist in Beijing, said that China, with 1.3 billion people, has a much larger population than North Korea, with a reported 24 million people. Still, Pyongyang gets far more scrutiny from the U.N. and other international organizations.

“The United Nations has actually been very weak on human rights,” Hu said in an interview with McClatchy.

“North Korea is an extreme example, but there are very few people there compared to China.”

Cao had booked a flight to travel to Switzerland late last year to observe a Human Rights Council review, but police arrested her at Beijing’s main airport, according to her colleagues and news reports.

Hu, a friend of Cao’s who has faced detention and other punishment for his activism, said that his late friend would have liked to testify before the U.N. panel. One of her biggest issues, he said, was secret “re-education through labor” camps, which she had experienced firsthand.

Hu expressed skepticism that the U.N. council would take real action to encourage China to change its ways, given China’s worldwide economic clout. But other human right monitors noted that Cao had risked her life hoping that the United Nations might have an impact.

“She (Cao) didn’t have that skepticism, and that is important,” Sophie Richardson, China program director for the advocacy group Human Rights Watch, said in an interview with McClatchy. “That is how international bodies become relevant — by people believing that these bodies can accomplish something.”

Richardson said Wednesday’s session is effectively a peer review session, in which the U.N. council will weigh conflicting claims about China’s domestic record, separate from China’s influence over Pyongyang.

China was named in the U.N. report because of its practice of deporting refugees back to North Korea, as opposed to treating at least some of the rogue country’s refugees as asylum seekers.

McClatchy special correspondent Tiantian Zhang contributed to this report from Beijing.

Rules for posting comments

Comments posted below are from readers. In no way do they represent the view of Stephens Media LLC or this newspaper. This is a public forum.

Comments may be monitored for inappropriate content but the newspaper is under no obligation to do so. Comment posters are solely responsible under the Communications Decency Act for comments posted on this Web site. Stephens Media LLC is not liable for messages from third parties.

IP and email addresses of persons who post are not treated as confidential records and will be disclosed in response to valid legal process.

Do not post:

Potentially libelous statements or damaging innuendo.

Obscene, explicit, or racist language.

Copyrighted materials of any sort without the express permission of the copyright holder.

Personal attacks, insults or threats.

The use of another person's real name to disguise your identity.

Comments unrelated to the story.

If you believe that a commenter has not followed these guidelines, please click the FLAG icon below the comment.